Putting your garden to bed

Steve Whysall and North Shore gardener Lawrence Wick wrap a banana plant to prepare it for winter. Wick has a garden full of hardy bananas. Adding fertilizer will give your lawn a boost.Photo by
Jenelle Schneider / Handout

A few important chores, like lifting tubers and adding lime to the lawn, will set up your garden for its winter sleep.

Before the end of October, there are a few important chores to complete in the garden before you can say you have put it to bed for winter.

If you have not done it already, you need to lift and pack away your dahlia tubers to protect them for another year.

You should also be getting ready to wrap your banana trees, as well as your Tasmanian tree ferns to protect them over winter.

Lawns could use a sprinkling of lime, as well as a little winter fertilizer to keep the grass healthy over the cold spell.

It's also a good time to get your cedar and boxwood hedges neatly trimmed before winter.

Here's a little more detail on how to do all of these tasks:

HOW TO LIFT AND STORE DAHLIAS

Ideally, you want to lift tubers any time from the end of October to the middle of November.

The traditional approach is to wait until frost turns foliage black and then dig up tubers, but this doesn't always happen in milder areas, and it is also impractical for gardeners to wait around when they want the job done.

Before you start to dig, you need to cut away the foliage, which sometimes involves slicing off perfectly good flowers.

Save these to display indoors. Snip away until you have reduced the plant to the bare bones of just the stems poking out of the ground.

Don't use a garden fork. You risk accidentally piercing tubers with the prongs. Use a spade and dig deeply to lift the clumps.

Start by working around the outside of the clump, about 15 inches from the main stem.

Once you have completed a circle of the plant, you should find the clump is loose enough in the ground to start lifting.

Don't pull the tubers up by the main stem. Push your spade as deeply as possible under the clump, hold the stem and ease up the tubers, allowing the plant to go in the direction it wants to as you lift. This will prevent the stem tearing away from the tubers.

You might think you should only divide a clump every three or four years, but it is OK to divide clumps every year. A single tuber will still produce a sizable plant the next year.

It is not necessary to wash tubers. Simply knock or brush off as much soil as possible and wrap the tubers in newspaper.

Newspaper is ideal because it protects the tuber without causing it to dry out too much. Newspaper also doesn't add moisture and allows for some air flow.

HOW TO PROTECT YOUR HARDY BANANA AND TASMANIAN TREE FERN FOR WINTER

The hardy banana (Musa basjoo) and Tasmanian tree fern (Dicksonia antartica) are two popular garden plants that need special attention in fall.

With the banana, first remove the large leaves, cutting them off at the point where they join the main trunk.

Wrap the remaining part with a long length of thick polyethylene. You can wind this around the trunk or place plastic over the top and secure with duct tape.

Take 1.2-m (four-foot) bats of insulation and place them between sheets of polyethylene. Staple the edges to enclose the insulation.

Take these bats and wrap them around the tree and secure them with duct tape.

Lastly, wrap the tree one more time with more polyethylene and use a garbage bag to place over the top to prevent rain getting in.

Unwrap in April.

With the tree fern, insulate the crown (the top of the trunk) and wrap in plastic. The rest of the trunk can also be wrapped but the most sensitive area to frost is the crown at the top.

- Call in an arborist to talk about any pruning or tree care concerns and get an expert opinion now. Don't wait until spring.

- Get your cedar and boxwood hedges trimmed. They will look great over winter and, being sleek and trimmed, will also be less prone to holding on to heavy snow when it falls.

- Prune back roses by a third to stop them rocking in winter winds, which can damage roots. Some rose experts also like to de-foliate roses, stripping them of their leaves to eliminate the spread of black spot and other diseases.

- All tender plants, of course, should be moved into safe winter quarters before hard frosts kill them. You have time, but don't wait too long to get those fuchsias and brugmansias tucked up into protected areas.

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